This And That

Just a few tidbits and observations today.

* I had to pee in a cup this morning. Regular readers will remember that in order to give a urine sample here, one must purchase their own pee cup in advance. They are not provided by the clinic or laboratory. Since I knew I had to get some lab work done today, prior to my cardio appointment on Wednesday, I purchased my cup yesterday.

Last time I got it at the little pharmacy just inside the grocery store, Super Express. Cost me six pesos (49 cents). Yesterday morning I had a delightful breakfast with C. Randle and his wife, Norma, downtown, so I decided to go to the main pharmacy, since it was closer to where I was. I was appalled when the pharmacist rang it up and it was 18 pesos! ($1.47) Next time I just may use a Zip Lok bag!

* I'm expecting to see an increase all around in the price of goods here. For what, the 3rd or 4th time this year, PeMex has raised the price of gasoline again. To the equivalent of $2.47 a gallon! This increase is going to hurt the guy on the street. And increase the cost of bringing goods to the island. As I am fond of telling people: Remember, every single thing you see here on the island, including yourself, was brought over by boat.

* Lobster season officially ended on March 1. That starts the breeding season and they are not to be caught anymore after that. Yeah, right. This year's closing date brought screams from the local fishermen. They have had so many days where the Harbor Master has closed the port, not allowing them to go out to sea, that they estimated that they still had 700-900 traps still out there on the bottom of the sea. Quite a financial blow to them. So the powers that be that control such things allowed them to go out to sea to collect their traps. With the caveat that any lobsters found in them were to be set free, dead or alive. (of course, if they allowed them to bring back the dead ones, they would all have died somewhere between the sea bed and land!)

Funny coincidence. A lot of restaurants have live lobster tanks out front, allowing customers to choose their own lobster. These tanks have been empty for months. This weekend every tank in town was bursting with fresh, live lobsters! I wonder where they came from??

* We are on our second day in a row of beautiful weather. Clear, bright blue skies. Bright yellow sun bathing everybody. Wonderful after this hellacious blow of cold weather that covered the island for so long. I hope we are finally into Spring now.

* It was such a beatiful morning today that I decided to travel the island on my scooter and see what I could see. I'll be sharing some of that with you the rest of the week. Enjoy your day, wherever you are!